Dairy farming is increasingly affected by the digital revolution. To respond to current challenges—such as environmental, economic, and social sustainability—new technologies must be adopted, entering the perspective of precision livestock farming. This is made possible by the development of countless sensors to be adopted in the barn. The technology that is affecting various aspects of dairy cattle breeding is certainly near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) which is versatile and can be used online/inline to evaluate and control the critical points of the production process by entering the PAT (process analytical technology). In the barn, NIRS currently can obtain information on the chemical-physical composition of raw materials, total mixed ration (TMR), feces and digestibility, chemical and technological analysis of milk. All this in a short time by eliminating the waiting times for analysis response and costs, allowing an improvement of livestock management. Many studies affirm the validity of NIRS as a reliable and predictive technology against multiple relevant parameters in matrices such as raw feed, TMR, feces, and milk. This review highlights the usefulness of NIRS technology in dairy farm with particular attention to portable instrumentation usable directly on the farm.

Increases in temperature and the greater incidence of extreme events are the consequences of the climate change that is taking place on planet Earth. High temperatures create severe discomfort to animal farms as they are unable to efficiently dissipate their body heat, and for this, they implement mechanisms to reduce the production of endogenous heat (reducing feed intake and production). In tropical and subtropical countries, where buffalo breeding is more widespread, there are strong negative consequences of heat stress (HS) on the production and quality of milk, reproduction, and health. The increase in ambient temperature is also affecting temperate countries in which buffalo farms are starting to highlight problems due to HS. To counteract HS, it is possible to improve buffalo thermotolerance by using a genetic approach, but even if it is essential, it is a long process. Two other mitigation approaches are nutritional strategies, such as the use of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants and cooling strategies such as shade, fans, sprinklers, and pools. Among the cooling systems that have been evaluated, wallowing or a combination of fans and sprinklers, when wallowing is not available, are good strategies, even if wallowing was the best because it improved the production and reproduction performance and the level of general well-being of the animals.

Mountain ecosystems are unique and complex environments characterised by their high altitudes, steep slopes, and significant climatic variations

Recently, much interest has been raised for the characterization of signaling molecules carried by extracellular vesicles (EVs), which are particularly enriched in milk (mEVs). Such interest is linked to the capability of EVs to cross biological barriers, resist acidification in the gastric environment, and exert modulation of the immune system, mainly through their microRNA (miRNA) content. We characterized the small-RNA cargo of colostrum EVs (colosEVs) and mEVs from Italian Mediterranean buffalo through next generation sequencing. Colostrum (first milking after birth) and milk (day 50 of lactation) were sampled from seven subjects from five farms. ColosEVs and mEVs were subjected to morphological characterization, followed by high-depth sequencing of small RNA libraries produced from total RNA. The main difference was the amount of EV in the two samples, with colostrum showing 10 to 100-fold higher content than milk. For both matrices, miRNA was the most abundant RNA species (95% for colosEVs and 96% for mEVs) and three lists were identified: colosEV-specific, mEV-specific and shared most expressed. Gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis on miRNA targets highlighted many terms related to the epigenetic, transcriptional and translational regulations across the three lists, with a higher number of enriched terms for colosEV-specific miRNAs. Terms specific to colosEVs were related to “cell differentiation” and “microvillus assembly”, while for mEV “cardiac and blood vessel development” and “mitochondria” emergerd. Immune modulation terms were found for both sample-specific miRNAs. Overall, both matrices carry a similar molecular message in terms of biological processes potentially modulated into receiving cells, but there is significant difference in the abundance, with colostrum containing much more EVs than milk. Moreover, colosEVs carry molecules involved in signal transduction, cell cycle and immune response, as for mEVs and EVs of other previously characterized species, but with a special enrichment for miRNAs with epigenetic regulation capacities. These beneficial characteristics of colosEVs and mEVs are essential for the calf and could also be exploited for the therapeutic purposes in humans, although further studies are necessary to measure the sanitization treatment impact on EV conservation, especially in buffalo where milk is consumed almost exclusively after processing.

Methane (CH₄) from livestock, particularly enteric CH₄ emission (EME), is one contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. This review analyzed 1294 scientific abstracts on EME in ruminants from 1986 to May 2024, using Scopus^® data. Descriptive statistics, text mining, and topic analysis were performed. Publications on EME have risen significantly since 2005, with the Journal of Dairy Science being the most frequent publisher. Most studies (82.1%) were original research, with Northern Hemisphere countries leading in publication numbers. The most frequent terms were “milk”, “cow”, and “diet”, while key research topics included greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, diet composition, and prediction models. Despite progress, some areas like CH₄ emission from animals need further investigation.